Research & Organization Management

The Certified Management Consultant Designation
All ROM teams are led by a Certified Management Consultant, the highest professional designation in the industry and evidence of meeting the standards of consulting and adherence to the ethical canons of the profession. Less than 1% of all consultants have achieved this certification. The CMC® certification mark is registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and is honored in 43 nations as the global standard of technical excellence and professional conduct in the management consulting profession. For more information see the Institute of Management Consultants USA.

How to Hire a Management Consultant
You can find excellent advice for your organization if you follow a few rules. First, be clear about what you want for your organization and confirm that you really need a management consultant. Next, you'll need to know where to look for advice. Referrals can come from a trusted colleague, a professional association for consultants, or recommendations from your staff. Next, you will want to screen candidate consultants, but knowing what questions to ask is critical. Experience? Consulting skills? Practical solutions? Chemistry? Performance? All are important. Finally, once you have selected a consultant, you still need to lay out the engagement, manage the process, and evaluate performance. Download How to Hire a Management Consultant and Get the Results You Expect a complete guide for this process

Resources to Improve Organization and Management Performance

This section will periodically include resources that we'd lik eto share with the business and management consulting communities to help them better lead their organizations. 

Recent Research

ROM is conducting research on administrative best practices for subunits of a major research institution. When results are completed, and with permission of the client, we will discuss these results here.

Books We Are Reading

Zander, Rosamund Stone and Benjamin, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life, Harvard Business School Press, 2000 (ISBN 0-87584-770-6). Rosamund Stone Zander is a family therapist and Ben Zander is the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, not two professions that one would think would weigh significantly on leadership. This book, however, reflects the core issues of leadership, followership, participation, meaning, and contribution that leaders and managers in every institution deal with. Through examples, many of which relate to his orchestra, Ben Zander provides a way to see your contribution to an organization both as leader and follower. This may be as far from management theory as one can get, but you will find that it profoundly affects how you lead your organization.

Crainer, Stuart, The 75 Greatest Management Decisions Ever Made . . . and 21 of the Worst, AMACOM, 1999. (ISBN 0-8144-0491-X).  More of a fun book than an insight builder, Crainer’s examples provide some insight into your relation with customers and the marketplace. Meant as an inspiration to think large about the your company's role in the world, these examples are seemingly small decisions or world views that turned out to transform their originator’s companies. The examples of bad decisions should provide some humility that what seemed like a god idea at the time turned sour, another reason to have a solid leadership team with good internal communication.